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L’Île enchantée
细节
ANTOINE WATTEAU (VALENCIENNES 1684-1721 NOGENT-SUR-MARNE)
L’Île enchantée
huile sur toile
46 x 56,2 cm (18 1⁄8 x 22 1⁄8 in.)
L’Île enchantée
huile sur toile
46 x 56,2 cm (18 1⁄8 x 22 1⁄8 in.)
来源
Jean-Sylvain Cartaud (Cartault) (1675-1758), architecte du duc de Berry, Paris, dès au moins 1734 (selon la lettre de l'estampe de Jacques Philippe Le Bas annoncée au Mercure de France en octobre 1734 [voir infra]) et jusqu’au moins 1755 (selon l'inventaire des biens de son épouse, Jeanne Bailly [‘une fete champetre prise Deux cent quarante livres’, 11 août 1755, A.N., M.C., XLI, 525, fol. 13 v°]) (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra).
[Probablement] Dr. Robert Bragge (1700-1774), Londres ; sa vente, 17 mars 1758, lot 30 (‘A landschape’, vendu £3 à Reynolds).
[Peu probablement] Benjamin van der Gucht (1753-1794), portraitiste et marchand ; vente anonyme [A Catalogue of a Magnificent and Genuine Collection of Pictures], Londres, 26 avril 1787 et jours suivants, lot 55.
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), PRA FRS FRSA, artiste, Londres (qui l’aurait acquis lors de la vente de 1758 [voir supra]) ; sa vente, Christie's, Londres, 13, 14, 16 et 17 mars 1795, soit lot 45 (premier jour ; ‘A conversation, Champetre, fine’) (vendu £8 à Hughes [GPRI et archives Christie’s] ou Bryand [MET]), soit lot 28 (quatrième jour ; ‘A conversation, Champetre’) (vendu £18 au général Stainforth [MET et archives Christie’s]) (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra).
[Peut-être] vente anonyme [A Catalogue of a Collection of Italian, French, Flemish, and Dutch Pictures. The genuine Property of a Gentleman, brought from his seat, in the County of Surrey], Hermon, Londres, 20-21 avril 1807, lot 248 (vendu £29) (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra).
James Holworthy (1781-1841), aquarelliste et ami de Joseph Mallord William Turner, RA (1775-1851) (qui en dressa une esquisse [Tate, Londres, Turner Bequest CXLI 26 a]), Derbyshire, dès au moins 1818 (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra) ;
Puis par descendance à sa veuve, Anne Holworthy (1777-1842), née Wright, en 1841 (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra) ;
Puis par descendance à sa soeur, Hannah Wright (1775-1867), en 1842 ; sa vente, Brookfield Hall, Hathersage, Derbyshire, 19 mars 1868 (quatrième jour), lot 90 (vendu £168).
[Peut-être] vente anonyme, Paris, 1er mars 1844, lot 57 (‘sans dim. & avec une descript. très vague’ selon E. Dacier, A. Vuaflart, 1922, voir infra - il s’agit d’une autre version selon le catalogue d’exposition de 1984-1985, voir infra).
Chez Léon Gauchez (1827-1907), Paris (selon un cachet au revers du châssis) ;
Acquis auprès de celui-ci par John Waterloo Wilson (1815-1883), Paris puis Bruxelles, le 2 mars 1871 (25,000 frs. – inv. 25 – selon I. Goddeeris, 2016, voir infra) ; sa vente, in situ (hôtel Hoche), Paris, 14-16 mars 1881, (Me Pillet), lot 25 (adjugé 20,000 frs.) ;
Acquis au cours de celle-ci par Alexis Joseph Febvre (1810-1881) (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra) ; sa vente après décès, Paris, 17-20 avril 1882, (Mes Lechat & Chevallier), lot 35 (adjugé 20,000 frs., reproduit par la gravure de Gustave Greux) ;
Acquis au cours de celle-ci par le baron Étienne Edmond Martin de Beurnonville (1825-1906), Paris (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra) ; sa vente anonyme [M. le baron de B….], hôtel Drouot, Paris, 21-22 mai 1883, (Mes Chevallier & Pillet), lot 42 (adjugé 15,000 frs., vendu 20,000 frs. avec frais à Michel [AP, D48E371 selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra], reproduit par la gravure de Gustave Greux).
Édouard Kahn (Kann), Paris, dès au moins décembre 1883 (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 1883-1884, voir infra) ; sa vente anonyme [Collection K], hôtel Drouot, Paris, 8 juin 1895, (Me Duchesne), lot 9 (adjugé 41,000 frs. [AP, D42E380 selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra]) ;
Racheté au cours de celle-ci par Madame Kahn (AP, D42E380 selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra).
Léon Michel-Lévy (1846-1925), Paris, dès au moins 1912 (selon Z. E. H. Zimmerman, 1912, voir infra) ; sa vente, galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 17-18 juin 1925, (Mes Lair-Dubreuil & Baudoin), lot 158 (adjugé 475,000 frs., vendu 500,000 frs. avec frais [INHA, VP 1925⁄540 bis]) ;
Acquis au cours de celle-ci par George Wildenstein (1892-1963) (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra).
François Coty (1874-1934), fondateur de l’entreprise de parfumerie éponyme, château du Puy d’Artigny, Montbazon et pavillon du Barry, Louveciennes ; sa vente, galerie Jean Charpentier, Paris, 30 novembre-1er décembre 1936, (Mes Baudoin & Ader), lot 30 (adjugé 560,000 frs, vendu 641,200 frs. avec frais, reproduit par la gravure de Jacques Philippe Le Bas) ;
Acquis au cours de celle-ci par Doña Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares (1900-1980) et Son Excellence Don Jorge Ortiz Linares (1894-1965) ;
Puis par descendance.
[Probablement] Dr. Robert Bragge (1700-1774), Londres ; sa vente, 17 mars 1758, lot 30 (‘A landschape’, vendu £3 à Reynolds).
[Peu probablement] Benjamin van der Gucht (1753-1794), portraitiste et marchand ; vente anonyme [A Catalogue of a Magnificent and Genuine Collection of Pictures], Londres, 26 avril 1787 et jours suivants, lot 55.
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), PRA FRS FRSA, artiste, Londres (qui l’aurait acquis lors de la vente de 1758 [voir supra]) ; sa vente, Christie's, Londres, 13, 14, 16 et 17 mars 1795, soit lot 45 (premier jour ; ‘A conversation, Champetre, fine’) (vendu £8 à Hughes [GPRI et archives Christie’s] ou Bryand [MET]), soit lot 28 (quatrième jour ; ‘A conversation, Champetre’) (vendu £18 au général Stainforth [MET et archives Christie’s]) (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra).
[Peut-être] vente anonyme [A Catalogue of a Collection of Italian, French, Flemish, and Dutch Pictures. The genuine Property of a Gentleman, brought from his seat, in the County of Surrey], Hermon, Londres, 20-21 avril 1807, lot 248 (vendu £29) (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra).
James Holworthy (1781-1841), aquarelliste et ami de Joseph Mallord William Turner, RA (1775-1851) (qui en dressa une esquisse [Tate, Londres, Turner Bequest CXLI 26 a]), Derbyshire, dès au moins 1818 (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra) ;
Puis par descendance à sa veuve, Anne Holworthy (1777-1842), née Wright, en 1841 (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra) ;
Puis par descendance à sa soeur, Hannah Wright (1775-1867), en 1842 ; sa vente, Brookfield Hall, Hathersage, Derbyshire, 19 mars 1868 (quatrième jour), lot 90 (vendu £168).
[Peut-être] vente anonyme, Paris, 1er mars 1844, lot 57 (‘sans dim. & avec une descript. très vague’ selon E. Dacier, A. Vuaflart, 1922, voir infra - il s’agit d’une autre version selon le catalogue d’exposition de 1984-1985, voir infra).
Chez Léon Gauchez (1827-1907), Paris (selon un cachet au revers du châssis) ;
Acquis auprès de celui-ci par John Waterloo Wilson (1815-1883), Paris puis Bruxelles, le 2 mars 1871 (25,000 frs. – inv. 25 – selon I. Goddeeris, 2016, voir infra) ; sa vente, in situ (hôtel Hoche), Paris, 14-16 mars 1881, (Me Pillet), lot 25 (adjugé 20,000 frs.) ;
Acquis au cours de celle-ci par Alexis Joseph Febvre (1810-1881) (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra) ; sa vente après décès, Paris, 17-20 avril 1882, (Mes Lechat & Chevallier), lot 35 (adjugé 20,000 frs., reproduit par la gravure de Gustave Greux) ;
Acquis au cours de celle-ci par le baron Étienne Edmond Martin de Beurnonville (1825-1906), Paris (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra) ; sa vente anonyme [M. le baron de B….], hôtel Drouot, Paris, 21-22 mai 1883, (Mes Chevallier & Pillet), lot 42 (adjugé 15,000 frs., vendu 20,000 frs. avec frais à Michel [AP, D48E371 selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra], reproduit par la gravure de Gustave Greux).
Édouard Kahn (Kann), Paris, dès au moins décembre 1883 (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 1883-1884, voir infra) ; sa vente anonyme [Collection K], hôtel Drouot, Paris, 8 juin 1895, (Me Duchesne), lot 9 (adjugé 41,000 frs. [AP, D42E380 selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra]) ;
Racheté au cours de celle-ci par Madame Kahn (AP, D42E380 selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra).
Léon Michel-Lévy (1846-1925), Paris, dès au moins 1912 (selon Z. E. H. Zimmerman, 1912, voir infra) ; sa vente, galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 17-18 juin 1925, (Mes Lair-Dubreuil & Baudoin), lot 158 (adjugé 475,000 frs., vendu 500,000 frs. avec frais [INHA, VP 1925⁄540 bis]) ;
Acquis au cours de celle-ci par George Wildenstein (1892-1963) (selon le catalogue d’exposition de 2025, voir infra).
François Coty (1874-1934), fondateur de l’entreprise de parfumerie éponyme, château du Puy d’Artigny, Montbazon et pavillon du Barry, Louveciennes ; sa vente, galerie Jean Charpentier, Paris, 30 novembre-1er décembre 1936, (Mes Baudoin & Ader), lot 30 (adjugé 560,000 frs, vendu 641,200 frs. avec frais, reproduit par la gravure de Jacques Philippe Le Bas) ;
Acquis au cours de celle-ci par Doña Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares (1900-1980) et Son Excellence Don Jorge Ortiz Linares (1894-1965) ;
Puis par descendance.
出版
Mercure de France, dédié au Roy, octobre 1734, p. 2266.
[Peut-être] W. Seward, Biographiana, Londres, 1799, I, p. 136 (selon S. Whittingham, 1984, voir infra).
H. P. Hédouin, ‘Watteau. Catalogue de son œuvre’, L’artiste. Revue de Paris, 1846, 4e série, V, p. 79, n°101 (article repris dans P. Hédouin, Mosaïque. Peintres – Musiciens – Littérateurs – Artistes dramatiques, Paris, 1856, p. 104, n°102).
P. Mantz, ‘L’école française sous la Régence. Antoine Watteau’, Revue française, février 1859, 5e année, XVI, p. 348 (semble avoir vu le tableau car parle de ses ‘fonds bleuissants’).
J. Cousin, Le tombeau de Watteau à Nogent-sur-Marne. Notice historique sur la vie et la mort d’Antoine Watteau, sur l’érection et l’inauguration du monument élevé par souscription en 1865, Nogent-sur-Marne, 1865, p. 31.
[Peut-être] R. Leslie, T. Taylor, Life and times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1865, II, p. 139, sous la note 1.
C. Tardieu, ‘Les grandes collections étrangères. II, M. John Wilson IV.’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1874, 16e année, 2e période, IX, p. 42.
A. Michiels, Histoire de la peinture flamande depuis ses débuts jusqu’en 1864, Paris, 1874 (seconde édition), IX, pp. 399-400.
E. de Goncourt, Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint, dessiné et gravé d’Antoine Watteau, Paris, 1875, p. 128, sous le n°139 (comme fort douteux).
P. Eudel, L’Hôtel Drouot et la Curiosité en 1881, Paris, 1882, p. 51, p. 70 et p. 73.
P. Leroi, ‘Alexis Febvre (fin). VII’ L’Art, 1882, 8e année, II (XXIX), p. 15, reproduit par la gravure de Gustave Greux, s. p.
G. Bourcard, Dessins, gouaches, estampes et tableaux du dix-huitième siècle. Guide de l’amateur, Paris, 1893, p. 529.
C. Phillips, Antoine Watteau, Londres, 1895, p. 66.
P. Marcel, La Peinture Française au début du dix-huitième siècle. 1690-1721, Paris, 1906, pp. 287-288, sous la note 4.
Z. E. H. Zimmerman, Watteau, coll. Klassiker der Kunst in Gesamtausgaben, Stuttgart-Leipzig, 1912, XXI, reproduit p. 58.
E. Dacier, A. Vuaflart, Jean de Jullienne et les graveurs de Watteau au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1922, III, p. 111, sous le n°264 ; Paris, 1921, IV, reproduit par la gravure pl. 264.
L. Réau, Les peintres français du XVIIIe siècle. Histoire des vies et catalogue des œuvres, Paris-Bruxelles, 1928, p. 43, n°151.
[Peut-être] W.T. Whitley, Artists and their Friends in England, 1700-1799, Londres-Boston, 1928, I, p. 110.
L. Gillet, La peinture au musée du Louvre. École française, Paris, s. d., p. 36.
M. Eisenstadt, Watteau Fêtes Galantes und ihre Ursprünge, Berlin, 1930, p. 81, reproduit par la gravure face à p. 152, fig. 15.
K. T. Parker, The Drawings of Antoine Watteau, Londres, 1931, pp. 30-31 et p. 39.
‘Les ventes’, La Revue de l’Art Ancien et Moderne, juillet-décembre 1936, 40e année, 3e période, LXX, p. 287, reproduit en noir et blanc.
É. Michel et al., Watteau. L’Embarquement pour l’île de Cythère, coll. Monographies des peintures du musée du Louvre, Paris, 1939, II, p. 13.
H. Adhémar, Watteau, sa vie, son œuvre, coll. Prométhée, Paris, 1950, p. 40, p. 48 et p. 226, n°188, reproduit en noir et blanc pl. 115.
K. T. Parker, J. Mathey, Antoine Watteau. Catalogue complet de son œuvre dessiné, Paris, 1957, I, p. 62, sous le n°467 (avec une confusion entre les pl. 115 et 155 pour Adhémar, 1950, supra) ; II, p. 309, sous le n°547, p. 314, sous le n°590, p. 327, sous le n°666, p. 328, sous le n°676 et p. 356, sous le n°813.
J. Mathey, Antoine Watteau. Peintures réapparues, inconnues, ou négligées par les historiens. Identification par les dessins. Chronologie, Paris, 1959, p. 68.
E. Camesasca, P. Rosenberg, Tout l’œuvre peint de Watteau, Paris, 1970, p. 115, n°169, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 114 (réédition G. Macchia, E. C. Montagni, L'Opera completa di Watteau, Milan, 1968, p. 115, n°169, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 114).
J. Ferré, R. Brié, Watteau, Madrid, 1972, I, p. 146, p. 148, p. 176, p. 218, p. 258, p. 1734, p. 1879-1881, p. 1882-1883, p. 1895-1897, p. 1924-1926 et p. 1934-1939 ; III, p. 870, sous le n°A28, p. 875, sous le n°A31 et p. 1012, sous le n°B60 (comme attribué à Jean-Antoine Watteau), reproduit par la gravure ; IV, p. 1099, p. 1104, p. 1106, p. 1115, p. 1120 et p. 1122
Y. Boerlin-Brodbeck, Antoine Watteau und das Theater, [thèse], Universität Basel, 1973, pp. 220-221 et pp. 330-332, sous les notes 511, 512 et 518.
R. Raines, ‘Watteaus and « Watteaus » in England before 1760’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, février 1977, 119e année, LXXXIX, [probablement] p. 58, n°75 et pp. 62-63, n°75.
H. Bauer, Rokokomalerei, Mittenwald, 1980, p. 40.
E. de Goncourt, J. de Goncourt, French Eighteenth-Century Painters. Watteau, Boucher, Chardin, La Tour, Greuze, Fragonard, New York-Oxford, 1981, p. 40 (réédition New York-Oxford, 1948, p. 40).
M. Stuffmann, Jean-Antoine Watteau. Einschiffung nach Cythera. L’Ile de Cythère, [cat. exp.], Francfort, 1982, p. 88, sous le n°D17.
M. Roland Michel, Tout Watteau. La peinture, Paris, 1982, p. 72, n°209, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 76 (réédition Milan, 1981, n°209).
S. Whittingham, ‘Watteau’s “L’Ile Enchantée”: From the French Regence to the English Regency’, Pantheon, octobre-décembre 1984, 42e année, IV, pp. 339-347, reproduit en couleurs p. 343.
M. Roland Michel, Watteau. An artist of the Eighteenth Century, Londres, 1984, p. 105, p. 160 et p. 260 (réédition Watteau. Un artiste au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1984, p. 105, p. 160 et p. 260).
S. Whittingham, ‘What You Will ;or some notes regarding the influence of Watteau on Turner and other British Artists (I)’, Turner Studies, His Art & Epoch 1775-1851, été 1985, V, 1, p. 10, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 11, fig. 11.
S. Whittingham, ‘Watteau and “Watteaus” in Britain c. 1780-1851’, in F. Moreau, M. Morgan Grasselli (dir.), Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). Le peintre, son temps et sa légende, Paris-Genève, 1987, p. 272, sous les notes 22 et 23.
D. Kocks, ‘Le Monument Watteau de Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux à Valenciennes’, in F. Moreau, M. Morgan Grasselli (dir.), Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). Le peintre, son temps et sa légende, Paris-Genève, 1987, p. 322, sous la note 3.
F. Broun, Sir Joshua Reynolds' Collection of Paintings, [thèse non publiée], Princeton University, juin 1987, I, p. 53 et p. 136, reproduit en noir et blanc pl. 159 ; II, pp. 221-223.
J. Cage, J.M.W. Turner, ‘A Wonderful Range of Mind’, New Haven-Londres, 1987, p. 122, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 123, fig. 179.
M. Vidal, Watteau's Painted Conversations. Art, Literature, and Talk in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century France, New Haven-Londres, 1992, p. 24, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 24, pl. 27.
P. Rosenberg, L.-A. Prat, Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721, Catalogue raisonné des dessins, Milan, 1996, I, p. 32, sous le n°18 et p. 518, sous le n°322, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 32, fig. 18d et reproduit par la gravure p. 519, fig. 322b ; II, p. 628, sous le n°380, p. 670, sous le n°407, p. 904, sous le n°536, p. 918, sous le n°543 et p. 1022, sous le n°600, reproduit par la gravure p. 629, fig. 380d, p. 670, fig. 407c, p. 904, fig. 536b, p. 918, fig. 543f et p. 1022, fig. 600e ; III, p. 1322, sous le n°R649 et p. 1390, sous le n°G36.
A. Wintermute, Watteau and His World. French Drawing from 1700 to 1750, New York-Londres, 1999, p. 142, sous le n°26.
E. Bénézit, Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs, Paris, 1999, XIV, pp. 475-476
R. Temperini, Watteau, Milan-Paris, 2002, p. 145, n°82, reproduit en noir et blanc.
A. Wintermute, ‘Watteau and the fête galante. Valenciennes’, The Burlington Magazine, juillet 2004, CXLVI, 1216, p. 480 et p. 482.
D. Solkin (dir.), Turner and the Masters, [cat. exp.], Londres, 2009, p. 49 et p. 226, sous la note 29, reproduit en couleurs p. 48, fig. 18.
I. Warrell, ‘Allusions volées. Turner, copiste, collectionneur et « croqueur » de tableaux de maîtres anciens’, in G. Faroult (dir.), Turner et ses peintres, [cat. exp.], Paris, 2010, p. 52 et p. 60, sous la note 28, reproduit en couleurs p. 52, fig. 18.
E. Spertino, ‘Les mondes de Watteau, au château de Chantilly’, L’Éléphant [en ligne], mars 2015, https://lelephant-larevue.fr/recos/les-mondes-de-watteau-chateau-de-chantilly-lelephant/ (consulté le 3 octobre 2025).
D. Platzer, ‘What-ho, Watteau!’, The New Criterion [en ligne], 11 avril 2015, https://newcriterion.com/dispatch/what-ho-watteau/ (consulté le 3 octobre 2025).
I. Goddeeris, ‘La contribution de Léon Gauchez dans la constitution, valorisation et diffusion de la collection de tableaux de John Waterloo Wilson’, Cahiers bruxellois, 2016⁄1, XLVIII, s. p., tab. 2, n°17.
M. Eidelberg, A Watteau Abecedario [en ligne], mai 2024, http://watteau-abecedario.org/Ile_enchantee.htm (consulté le 9 octobre 2025).
A. Moulinier, ‘Façonner la fête galante. De « La Promenade sur les remparts » à « L’Île enchantée »’, in A. Moulinier, B. Roelly (dir.), Les mondes de Watteau, [cat. exp.], Dijon, 2025, pp. 176-177, reproduit en couleurs p. 150.
[Peut-être] W. Seward, Biographiana, Londres, 1799, I, p. 136 (selon S. Whittingham, 1984, voir infra).
H. P. Hédouin, ‘Watteau. Catalogue de son œuvre’, L’artiste. Revue de Paris, 1846, 4e série, V, p. 79, n°101 (article repris dans P. Hédouin, Mosaïque. Peintres – Musiciens – Littérateurs – Artistes dramatiques, Paris, 1856, p. 104, n°102).
P. Mantz, ‘L’école française sous la Régence. Antoine Watteau’, Revue française, février 1859, 5e année, XVI, p. 348 (semble avoir vu le tableau car parle de ses ‘fonds bleuissants’).
J. Cousin, Le tombeau de Watteau à Nogent-sur-Marne. Notice historique sur la vie et la mort d’Antoine Watteau, sur l’érection et l’inauguration du monument élevé par souscription en 1865, Nogent-sur-Marne, 1865, p. 31.
[Peut-être] R. Leslie, T. Taylor, Life and times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1865, II, p. 139, sous la note 1.
C. Tardieu, ‘Les grandes collections étrangères. II, M. John Wilson IV.’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1874, 16e année, 2e période, IX, p. 42.
A. Michiels, Histoire de la peinture flamande depuis ses débuts jusqu’en 1864, Paris, 1874 (seconde édition), IX, pp. 399-400.
E. de Goncourt, Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint, dessiné et gravé d’Antoine Watteau, Paris, 1875, p. 128, sous le n°139 (comme fort douteux).
P. Eudel, L’Hôtel Drouot et la Curiosité en 1881, Paris, 1882, p. 51, p. 70 et p. 73.
P. Leroi, ‘Alexis Febvre (fin). VII’ L’Art, 1882, 8e année, II (XXIX), p. 15, reproduit par la gravure de Gustave Greux, s. p.
G. Bourcard, Dessins, gouaches, estampes et tableaux du dix-huitième siècle. Guide de l’amateur, Paris, 1893, p. 529.
C. Phillips, Antoine Watteau, Londres, 1895, p. 66.
P. Marcel, La Peinture Française au début du dix-huitième siècle. 1690-1721, Paris, 1906, pp. 287-288, sous la note 4.
Z. E. H. Zimmerman, Watteau, coll. Klassiker der Kunst in Gesamtausgaben, Stuttgart-Leipzig, 1912, XXI, reproduit p. 58.
E. Dacier, A. Vuaflart, Jean de Jullienne et les graveurs de Watteau au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1922, III, p. 111, sous le n°264 ; Paris, 1921, IV, reproduit par la gravure pl. 264.
L. Réau, Les peintres français du XVIIIe siècle. Histoire des vies et catalogue des œuvres, Paris-Bruxelles, 1928, p. 43, n°151.
[Peut-être] W.T. Whitley, Artists and their Friends in England, 1700-1799, Londres-Boston, 1928, I, p. 110.
L. Gillet, La peinture au musée du Louvre. École française, Paris, s. d., p. 36.
M. Eisenstadt, Watteau Fêtes Galantes und ihre Ursprünge, Berlin, 1930, p. 81, reproduit par la gravure face à p. 152, fig. 15.
K. T. Parker, The Drawings of Antoine Watteau, Londres, 1931, pp. 30-31 et p. 39.
‘Les ventes’, La Revue de l’Art Ancien et Moderne, juillet-décembre 1936, 40e année, 3e période, LXX, p. 287, reproduit en noir et blanc.
É. Michel et al., Watteau. L’Embarquement pour l’île de Cythère, coll. Monographies des peintures du musée du Louvre, Paris, 1939, II, p. 13.
H. Adhémar, Watteau, sa vie, son œuvre, coll. Prométhée, Paris, 1950, p. 40, p. 48 et p. 226, n°188, reproduit en noir et blanc pl. 115.
K. T. Parker, J. Mathey, Antoine Watteau. Catalogue complet de son œuvre dessiné, Paris, 1957, I, p. 62, sous le n°467 (avec une confusion entre les pl. 115 et 155 pour Adhémar, 1950, supra) ; II, p. 309, sous le n°547, p. 314, sous le n°590, p. 327, sous le n°666, p. 328, sous le n°676 et p. 356, sous le n°813.
J. Mathey, Antoine Watteau. Peintures réapparues, inconnues, ou négligées par les historiens. Identification par les dessins. Chronologie, Paris, 1959, p. 68.
E. Camesasca, P. Rosenberg, Tout l’œuvre peint de Watteau, Paris, 1970, p. 115, n°169, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 114 (réédition G. Macchia, E. C. Montagni, L'Opera completa di Watteau, Milan, 1968, p. 115, n°169, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 114).
J. Ferré, R. Brié, Watteau, Madrid, 1972, I, p. 146, p. 148, p. 176, p. 218, p. 258, p. 1734, p. 1879-1881, p. 1882-1883, p. 1895-1897, p. 1924-1926 et p. 1934-1939 ; III, p. 870, sous le n°A28, p. 875, sous le n°A31 et p. 1012, sous le n°B60 (comme attribué à Jean-Antoine Watteau), reproduit par la gravure ; IV, p. 1099, p. 1104, p. 1106, p. 1115, p. 1120 et p. 1122
Y. Boerlin-Brodbeck, Antoine Watteau und das Theater, [thèse], Universität Basel, 1973, pp. 220-221 et pp. 330-332, sous les notes 511, 512 et 518.
R. Raines, ‘Watteaus and « Watteaus » in England before 1760’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, février 1977, 119e année, LXXXIX, [probablement] p. 58, n°75 et pp. 62-63, n°75.
H. Bauer, Rokokomalerei, Mittenwald, 1980, p. 40.
E. de Goncourt, J. de Goncourt, French Eighteenth-Century Painters. Watteau, Boucher, Chardin, La Tour, Greuze, Fragonard, New York-Oxford, 1981, p. 40 (réédition New York-Oxford, 1948, p. 40).
M. Stuffmann, Jean-Antoine Watteau. Einschiffung nach Cythera. L’Ile de Cythère, [cat. exp.], Francfort, 1982, p. 88, sous le n°D17.
M. Roland Michel, Tout Watteau. La peinture, Paris, 1982, p. 72, n°209, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 76 (réédition Milan, 1981, n°209).
S. Whittingham, ‘Watteau’s “L’Ile Enchantée”: From the French Regence to the English Regency’, Pantheon, octobre-décembre 1984, 42e année, IV, pp. 339-347, reproduit en couleurs p. 343.
M. Roland Michel, Watteau. An artist of the Eighteenth Century, Londres, 1984, p. 105, p. 160 et p. 260 (réédition Watteau. Un artiste au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1984, p. 105, p. 160 et p. 260).
S. Whittingham, ‘What You Will ;or some notes regarding the influence of Watteau on Turner and other British Artists (I)’, Turner Studies, His Art & Epoch 1775-1851, été 1985, V, 1, p. 10, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 11, fig. 11.
S. Whittingham, ‘Watteau and “Watteaus” in Britain c. 1780-1851’, in F. Moreau, M. Morgan Grasselli (dir.), Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). Le peintre, son temps et sa légende, Paris-Genève, 1987, p. 272, sous les notes 22 et 23.
D. Kocks, ‘Le Monument Watteau de Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux à Valenciennes’, in F. Moreau, M. Morgan Grasselli (dir.), Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). Le peintre, son temps et sa légende, Paris-Genève, 1987, p. 322, sous la note 3.
F. Broun, Sir Joshua Reynolds' Collection of Paintings, [thèse non publiée], Princeton University, juin 1987, I, p. 53 et p. 136, reproduit en noir et blanc pl. 159 ; II, pp. 221-223.
J. Cage, J.M.W. Turner, ‘A Wonderful Range of Mind’, New Haven-Londres, 1987, p. 122, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 123, fig. 179.
M. Vidal, Watteau's Painted Conversations. Art, Literature, and Talk in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century France, New Haven-Londres, 1992, p. 24, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 24, pl. 27.
P. Rosenberg, L.-A. Prat, Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721, Catalogue raisonné des dessins, Milan, 1996, I, p. 32, sous le n°18 et p. 518, sous le n°322, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 32, fig. 18d et reproduit par la gravure p. 519, fig. 322b ; II, p. 628, sous le n°380, p. 670, sous le n°407, p. 904, sous le n°536, p. 918, sous le n°543 et p. 1022, sous le n°600, reproduit par la gravure p. 629, fig. 380d, p. 670, fig. 407c, p. 904, fig. 536b, p. 918, fig. 543f et p. 1022, fig. 600e ; III, p. 1322, sous le n°R649 et p. 1390, sous le n°G36.
A. Wintermute, Watteau and His World. French Drawing from 1700 to 1750, New York-Londres, 1999, p. 142, sous le n°26.
E. Bénézit, Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs, Paris, 1999, XIV, pp. 475-476
R. Temperini, Watteau, Milan-Paris, 2002, p. 145, n°82, reproduit en noir et blanc.
A. Wintermute, ‘Watteau and the fête galante. Valenciennes’, The Burlington Magazine, juillet 2004, CXLVI, 1216, p. 480 et p. 482.
D. Solkin (dir.), Turner and the Masters, [cat. exp.], Londres, 2009, p. 49 et p. 226, sous la note 29, reproduit en couleurs p. 48, fig. 18.
I. Warrell, ‘Allusions volées. Turner, copiste, collectionneur et « croqueur » de tableaux de maîtres anciens’, in G. Faroult (dir.), Turner et ses peintres, [cat. exp.], Paris, 2010, p. 52 et p. 60, sous la note 28, reproduit en couleurs p. 52, fig. 18.
E. Spertino, ‘Les mondes de Watteau, au château de Chantilly’, L’Éléphant [en ligne], mars 2015, https://lelephant-larevue.fr/recos/les-mondes-de-watteau-chateau-de-chantilly-lelephant/ (consulté le 3 octobre 2025).
D. Platzer, ‘What-ho, Watteau!’, The New Criterion [en ligne], 11 avril 2015, https://newcriterion.com/dispatch/what-ho-watteau/ (consulté le 3 octobre 2025).
I. Goddeeris, ‘La contribution de Léon Gauchez dans la constitution, valorisation et diffusion de la collection de tableaux de John Waterloo Wilson’, Cahiers bruxellois, 2016⁄1, XLVIII, s. p., tab. 2, n°17.
M. Eidelberg, A Watteau Abecedario [en ligne], mai 2024, http://watteau-abecedario.org/Ile_enchantee.htm (consulté le 9 octobre 2025).
A. Moulinier, ‘Façonner la fête galante. De « La Promenade sur les remparts » à « L’Île enchantée »’, in A. Moulinier, B. Roelly (dir.), Les mondes de Watteau, [cat. exp.], Dijon, 2025, pp. 176-177, reproduit en couleurs p. 150.
展览
Bruxelles, galerie du cercle artistique et littéraire, Collection de M. John W. Wilson, 1873, s. n. (p. 50 du catalogue, reproduit par la gravure).
Paris, galerie Georges Petit, L’art du XVIIIe siècle, décembre 1883-janvier 1884, n°142.
Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art ; Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais ; Berlin, château de Charlottenburg, Watteau 1684-1721, 17 juin-23 septembre 1984 ; 23 octobre 1984-28 janvier 1985 ; 22 février-26 mai 1985, n°60.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, The Pastoral Landscape: The Legacy of Venice and The Modern Vision, 6 novembre 1988-22 janvier 1989, n°72.
Valenciennes, musée des Beaux-Arts, Watteau et la fête galante, 5 mars-14 juin 2004, n°7.
Chantilly, château de Chantilly, musée Condé, Les mondes de Watteau, 8 mars-15 juin 2025, n°51 (précise que la provenance de l’œuvre pourrait être clarifiée par la réapparition d’une seconde version, documentée pour la dernière fois en 1984, dont les dimensions correspondent avec les dimensions de l’estampe de Le Bas).
Paris, galerie Georges Petit, L’art du XVIIIe siècle, décembre 1883-janvier 1884, n°142.
Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art ; Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais ; Berlin, château de Charlottenburg, Watteau 1684-1721, 17 juin-23 septembre 1984 ; 23 octobre 1984-28 janvier 1985 ; 22 février-26 mai 1985, n°60.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, The Pastoral Landscape: The Legacy of Venice and The Modern Vision, 6 novembre 1988-22 janvier 1989, n°72.
Valenciennes, musée des Beaux-Arts, Watteau et la fête galante, 5 mars-14 juin 2004, n°7.
Chantilly, château de Chantilly, musée Condé, Les mondes de Watteau, 8 mars-15 juin 2025, n°51 (précise que la provenance de l’œuvre pourrait être clarifiée par la réapparition d’une seconde version, documentée pour la dernière fois en 1984, dont les dimensions correspondent avec les dimensions de l’estampe de Le Bas).
刻印
Gravé en sens inverse par Jacques Philippe Le Bas (1707-1783) d’après Antoine Watteau, L’île enchantée, pour Le Recueil Jullienne (Œuvres Des Estampes Gravées d’après Les Tableaux & Desseins de feu Antoine Watteau peintre flamand de l’Académie Royale de Peinture & de Sculpture. Quatrième & dernière Partie, 1735) en 1734 (annoncé dans le Mercure de France, dédié au Roy, octobre 1734, p. 2266 – la légende de l’estampe indique qu’elle présente les mêmes dimensions que l’œuvre bien que cela ne soit pas le cas, comme souvent dans Le Recueil Jullienne [on pense entre autres à l’Enseigne de Gersaint] : cela s’explique par le fait que l’estampe reprend uniquement la partie centrale de la composition peinte, en omettant principalement la partie supérieure [selon le catalogue d’exposition de 1984-1985, voir infra]).
Gravé par Gustave Greux (1838-1919) d’après Antoine Watteau, L’île enchantée, 1882.
Gravé par Gustave Greux (1838-1919) d’après Antoine Watteau, L’île enchantée, 1882.
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ANTOINE WATTEAU (1684-1721), L’ÎLE ENCHANTÉE, OIL ON CANVAS
Long recognized as one of the signal masterpieces of Watteau’s (1684-1721) career, L’Île enchantée is the finest and most important painting by the artist to remain in private hands. When it was shown in Paris, Berlin and Washington, DC, in 1984 in the exhibition celebrating the tercentenary of Watteau’s birth – the first time it had been seen publicly in more than a century – it proved the most spectacular and admired revelation of the exhibition. For the first time in living memory, audiences could appreciate for themselves the transcendent beauty and mystery of the painting which Alfred Michiels (1813-1892) described more than a century and a half earlier:
‘…This Enchanted Isle, where, on the edge of still and radiant waters, disappearing beneath trees pierced by a setting sun, men and women sit on the grass, their eyes on the snowy mountains of the opposite bank, on the immense plain, on the boundless and limitless expanse, all jagged with the mirages of the raking light in the hours preceding twilight…. It is an idealized landscape, a landscape attaining in its poetic composition a certain supernatural quality to which the material art of painting does not seem able to attain: this is the character of Watteau’s landscape.’ (A. Michiels, Histoire de la peinture flamande depuis ses débuts jusqu’en 1864, Paris, 1874, IX, p. 399.)
As Pierre Rosenberg memorably observed in 1984, in capturing ‘the grandiose and mysterious spectacle of nature…The Enchanted Isle, like The Island of Cythera, is on the earth yet unreachable, in time yet timeless.’ (P. Rosenberg in Watteau 1864-1721, [exh. cat.], 1984-1985, p. 394.)
Although rarely seen in public, L’Île enchantée has always been known to scholars and historians. The painting was engraved by Jacques-Philippe Le Bas (1707-1783) for inclusion in Jean de Jullienne’s (1686-1766) two volume compendium of prints made after 271 of Watteau’s paintings, published in 1735. Le Bas’s engraving was announced in the October 1734 edition of the Mercure de France, where it was entitled L’Île enchantée, and the original painting identified as ‘Du Cabinet de Mr Cartaud, Architecte de feu S.A:R. Monseig.r le Duc de Berry’ (see fig. 1). Jean-Silvain Cartaud (1675-1758) was the architect who in 1704 designed the Paris hôtel particulier of the fabulously wealthy banker and art collector Pierre Crozat (1665-1740), soon to be one of Watteau’s most avid patrons and supporters, in whose Paris home Watteau intermittently resided. In addition to creating the grand mansion on rue de Richelieu, Cartaud also designed in 1708 the château de Montmorency for Crozat, a magnificent country retreat north of Paris (near Saint Denis). The estate of Montmorency had previously been owned by the painter Charles Le Brun (1619-1690), its celebrated gardens as well as a smaller château designed for him by André Le Nôtre (1613-1700). Crozat left Le Nôtre’s gardens intact and commissioned Cartaud to build a second, larger château on the model of a 16th-century Roman palazzo in the southeast corner of the property, where it would command spectacular views. This was to become the main residence at Montmorency. Rather than demolishing the original mansion -- which occupied a picturesque spot on a canal separating the house from the gardens Crozat instructed Cartaud to completely remodel it, gutting its body and turning its two-storied loggia into an open-air maison de plaisance. This central, now ‘transparent’, section of the old house was depicted by Watteau in the background of the famous fête galante known as La Perspective (c.1716, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – see fig. 2), where, shimmering in the distance on the far side of the canal, it takes on the appearance of an enchanted palace.
Although no evidence of Watteau’s relationship with Cartaud exists, it is safe to assume that they were well-acquainted. Cartaud worked consistently for Crozat for some years. Crozat entertained freely at Montmorency and in Paris, hosting weekly salons for artists and amateurs, where Watteau was in frequent attendance. Like Cartaud, the painter was also employed by Crozat, who commissioned him to execute a suite of four large oval canvases personifying The Four Seasons for the dining room at rue de Richelieu. (Only one of the series survives, Summer, in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) Watteau is recorded living in Crozat’s hôtel particulier in 1717, and may have lived there on several other occasions between 1715 and 1718, when he studied and made copies of the old masters in the banker’s large and celebrated drawings collection.
It seems likely that having become acquainted with Watteau and his works through Crozat, and knowing of the distinguished connoisseur’s admiration for the painter, Cartaud commissioned, or purchased, from Watteau L’Île enchantée. Although there is no evidence that Crozat himself ever owned La Perspective – its earliest known owner, his name recorded on the engraving made of the painting in 1729, was a ‘Mr Guenon, Paris’, perhaps one of a family of cabinetmakers to the king – he would surely have known of it, as would Cartaud, as it depicts the very château that Crozat owned and Cartaud renovated. In this light, it is worth observing the strong similarities between La Perspective and L’Île enchantée. Both canvases are of almost precisely the same dimensions and depict sweeping landscapes in which male and female figures in opulent ‘fancy dress’ stroll, sit on the grass, and gaze longingly across a body of water to a distant, and almost magical, apparition – in La Perspective, it is to Crozat’s maison de plaisance; in L’Île enchantée, the vast, snow-capped mountains of a far-off land. Despite these striking similarities, L’Île enchantée is notably more sophisticated in its composition, grander and more ethereal in conception, and more refined in execution than the more earthbound La Perspective, and represents Watteau at the pinnacle of his maturity as a painter. In mastery and ambition, L’Île enchantée bears true comparison to only the finest of Watteau’s fêtes galantes – notably Assemblée dans un parc and Le Pélerinage à l’isle de Cithère (see fig. 3) (both, Louvre, Paris) – and must date to the same moment, circa 1717.
From an aerial – almost ‘bird’s eye’ – perspective, the viewer’s eye passes over Watteau’s beautifully articulated assembly of figures who sit, lie and lounge on the grass, before it rises upward, across a great pool of water, then up further to snow-capped mountains, and a cloud-roiled sky above, giving a great – almost cinematic – dynamism to the composition. The effect the artist creates is most comparable to that of his large-scale morceau de réception, Le Pélerinage à l’isle de Cithère, which secured his full membership in the Académie Royale when he presented it in August 1717. With its wide panorama, mood of general seduction – ‘everything breathes love, the air is bathed with it’ – and voluptuous vision of nature at its grandest and most enveloping, L’Île enchantée is a kind of Le Pélerinage à l’isle de Cithère in miniature, if in spirit and tone somewhat more ambiguous and less overtly playful.
If the landscape of L’Île enchantée is the most extensive and dramatic of Watteau’s career, the array of nineteen figures who inhabit it are among the most beautifully envisioned and articulated he ever produced. Each man and woman is lively and varied in pose – sitting, sprawling, kneeling, resting on an elbow, leaning in to offer words of seduction, pulling away to decline an unwanted advance. They dress in a mix of fashionable contemporary clothing and ‘fancy dress’ inspired by the theatre. Each fold of cloth, feathered hat, ruched bustle, and shimmer of light reflected off silk and satin is rendered with meticulous observation and accuracy, in a rainbow of variegated colors. Watteau owned ‘cavalier’s and comedian’s costumes in which he dressed up such persons as he could find, of either sex, who were capable of posing adequately, and whom he drew in such attitudes as nature dictated and with a ready preference for those that were the most simple’ (Comte de Caylus, ‘La vie d’Antoine Watteau, peintre de figures et de paysages’, in P. Rosenberg, Vies anciennes de Watteau, Paris, 1984, pp. 78-79 [English translation by R. Ironside, Goncourt's French eighteenth Century painters, London, 1948, p. 25].) Closely grouped to the left of the painting are seventeen seated figures who are balanced on the right side of the daringly asymmetrical composition, by one standing couple far removed from the others. A tall woman in a beautiful, silvery gown, seen from behind, turns to her lover and takes his arm; he turns and looks out to the viewer, as if to ask us to join them on their romantic journey.
Watteau based his painted characters on figure studies of models (usually his friends) dressed in costumes he himself provided, and he drew them from life. Many drawings have been loosely associated with figures in the painting, but only five sheets that are known today can be said, conclusively, to have been employed by the artist in composing the composition. A sheet of three studies of men (in the Louvre), executed in red and white chalk, includes a sketch for the kneeling man on the far left of L’Île enchantée and a study for the standing swain on the far right (RP.322). Another sheet, in a private collection, also includes studies in red chalk for two female figures in the painting: the seated woman seen from behind in the mustard-yellow gown, and the woman in silver who stands with her companion on the far right (RP.380 – see fig. 4). The man who lies on his stomach beneath a salmon-pink cape, appears in a sheet of red and white chalk studies in the Musée du Petit Palais, Paris (RP.407). A magnificent trois crayons study of the woman fending off her suitor in the lower left corner of the painting is in a private collection in New York (RP.543 – see fig. 5). Finally, a trois crayons drawing of the reclining man leaning on his right hand, red cape tossed over his legs, is known only from old photographs (RP.536). No doubt drawings for each character in the painting would have been utilized by Watteau in his preparations, even if most are today lost.
The most celebrated and often remarked upon aspect of L’Île enchantée is its dazzling, visionary landscape setting. The great English portrait painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), who owned L’Île enchantée in the late 18th century, is said to have been so mesmerized by its landscape and mystified by the subtle layering of glazes with which Watteau achieved it, that he scraped away a part of the sky ‘to see how Watteau painted’. (In fact, a small patch of original pigments in the sky have been scraped off.) The English landscapist J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) made a copy in pencil of the painting, with notes recording its colors, when it was in the collection of the watercolorist James Holworthy (1780-1841). Indeed, in the century that the painting resided in English collections, it was seen and studied by many British artists, including Gainsborough (1727-1788) and Wright of Derby (1734-1797), and had a notable influence on the development of landscape painting in England.
It has long been noted that the setting of L’Île enchantée was greatly influenced by 16th-century Venetian models, from Titian (1488⁄1490-1576), Campagnola (c.1500-1564) and Veronese (1528-1588), whose paintings and drawings Watteau would have seen in the extensive art collections of friends and patrons, including Crozat, Edmé-François Gersaint (1694-1750), Jean de Jullienne and the Comtesse de Verrue (1670-1736). Numerous copies drawn by Watteau in red chalk made from the Venetian old masters in Crozat’s collection survive. Less easy to trace is the impact that Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452-1519) paintings had on Watteau, but their influence is clear in Le Pélerinage à l’isle de Cithère and – never more so – L’Île enchantée. Of course, the French Royal collections famously had several of Leonardo’s greatest late paintings, including Mona Lisa and the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (today in the Louvre), both of which have fantastical, blue-tinted, snow-capped and craggy mountainous backgrounds that seem to have offered direct inspiration for L’Île enchantée. The Royal Collection was largely inaccessible to visitors during Watteau's lifetime, but he seems to have had direct access to Leonardo's masterpieces.
L’Île enchantée remained in Cartaud’s collection until his death and was recorded in the inventory of his estate in 1755, after which its provenance can be traced without interruption. It appeared in England in the collection of Dr. Robert Bragge (1700-1774), from whom it was acquired in 1758 by Reynolds. After passing through several more British collections, including Holworthy’s, it was back in France before 1881 and entered a succession of distinguished collections, including that of Baron Etienne Edmond Martin de Beurnonville (1825-1906); Edouard Kann (1848-1885); the banker Léon Michel-Lévy (1846-1925); and the celebrated parfumier François Coty, before being purchased by the dealers Wildenstein & Co., Paris & New York, from whom it was acquired by Jorge Ortiz Linares (1894-1965) and Graziella Patiño Rodriguez, and by descent to their son George Ortiz (1927-2013) and his heirs.
This famous painting was often copied in the 18th and 19th centuries in versions of varying dimensions and formats. Martin Eidelberg records thirteen known versions, most of negligible quality.
Alan Wintermute
Long recognized as one of the signal masterpieces of Watteau’s (1684-1721) career, L’Île enchantée is the finest and most important painting by the artist to remain in private hands. When it was shown in Paris, Berlin and Washington, DC, in 1984 in the exhibition celebrating the tercentenary of Watteau’s birth – the first time it had been seen publicly in more than a century – it proved the most spectacular and admired revelation of the exhibition. For the first time in living memory, audiences could appreciate for themselves the transcendent beauty and mystery of the painting which Alfred Michiels (1813-1892) described more than a century and a half earlier:
‘…This Enchanted Isle, where, on the edge of still and radiant waters, disappearing beneath trees pierced by a setting sun, men and women sit on the grass, their eyes on the snowy mountains of the opposite bank, on the immense plain, on the boundless and limitless expanse, all jagged with the mirages of the raking light in the hours preceding twilight…. It is an idealized landscape, a landscape attaining in its poetic composition a certain supernatural quality to which the material art of painting does not seem able to attain: this is the character of Watteau’s landscape.’ (A. Michiels, Histoire de la peinture flamande depuis ses débuts jusqu’en 1864, Paris, 1874, IX, p. 399.)
As Pierre Rosenberg memorably observed in 1984, in capturing ‘the grandiose and mysterious spectacle of nature…The Enchanted Isle, like The Island of Cythera, is on the earth yet unreachable, in time yet timeless.’ (P. Rosenberg in Watteau 1864-1721, [exh. cat.], 1984-1985, p. 394.)
Although rarely seen in public, L’Île enchantée has always been known to scholars and historians. The painting was engraved by Jacques-Philippe Le Bas (1707-1783) for inclusion in Jean de Jullienne’s (1686-1766) two volume compendium of prints made after 271 of Watteau’s paintings, published in 1735. Le Bas’s engraving was announced in the October 1734 edition of the Mercure de France, where it was entitled L’Île enchantée, and the original painting identified as ‘Du Cabinet de Mr Cartaud, Architecte de feu S.A:R. Monseig.r le Duc de Berry’ (see fig. 1). Jean-Silvain Cartaud (1675-1758) was the architect who in 1704 designed the Paris hôtel particulier of the fabulously wealthy banker and art collector Pierre Crozat (1665-1740), soon to be one of Watteau’s most avid patrons and supporters, in whose Paris home Watteau intermittently resided. In addition to creating the grand mansion on rue de Richelieu, Cartaud also designed in 1708 the château de Montmorency for Crozat, a magnificent country retreat north of Paris (near Saint Denis). The estate of Montmorency had previously been owned by the painter Charles Le Brun (1619-1690), its celebrated gardens as well as a smaller château designed for him by André Le Nôtre (1613-1700). Crozat left Le Nôtre’s gardens intact and commissioned Cartaud to build a second, larger château on the model of a 16th-century Roman palazzo in the southeast corner of the property, where it would command spectacular views. This was to become the main residence at Montmorency. Rather than demolishing the original mansion -- which occupied a picturesque spot on a canal separating the house from the gardens Crozat instructed Cartaud to completely remodel it, gutting its body and turning its two-storied loggia into an open-air maison de plaisance. This central, now ‘transparent’, section of the old house was depicted by Watteau in the background of the famous fête galante known as La Perspective (c.1716, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – see fig. 2), where, shimmering in the distance on the far side of the canal, it takes on the appearance of an enchanted palace.
Although no evidence of Watteau’s relationship with Cartaud exists, it is safe to assume that they were well-acquainted. Cartaud worked consistently for Crozat for some years. Crozat entertained freely at Montmorency and in Paris, hosting weekly salons for artists and amateurs, where Watteau was in frequent attendance. Like Cartaud, the painter was also employed by Crozat, who commissioned him to execute a suite of four large oval canvases personifying The Four Seasons for the dining room at rue de Richelieu. (Only one of the series survives, Summer, in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) Watteau is recorded living in Crozat’s hôtel particulier in 1717, and may have lived there on several other occasions between 1715 and 1718, when he studied and made copies of the old masters in the banker’s large and celebrated drawings collection.
It seems likely that having become acquainted with Watteau and his works through Crozat, and knowing of the distinguished connoisseur’s admiration for the painter, Cartaud commissioned, or purchased, from Watteau L’Île enchantée. Although there is no evidence that Crozat himself ever owned La Perspective – its earliest known owner, his name recorded on the engraving made of the painting in 1729, was a ‘Mr Guenon, Paris’, perhaps one of a family of cabinetmakers to the king – he would surely have known of it, as would Cartaud, as it depicts the very château that Crozat owned and Cartaud renovated. In this light, it is worth observing the strong similarities between La Perspective and L’Île enchantée. Both canvases are of almost precisely the same dimensions and depict sweeping landscapes in which male and female figures in opulent ‘fancy dress’ stroll, sit on the grass, and gaze longingly across a body of water to a distant, and almost magical, apparition – in La Perspective, it is to Crozat’s maison de plaisance; in L’Île enchantée, the vast, snow-capped mountains of a far-off land. Despite these striking similarities, L’Île enchantée is notably more sophisticated in its composition, grander and more ethereal in conception, and more refined in execution than the more earthbound La Perspective, and represents Watteau at the pinnacle of his maturity as a painter. In mastery and ambition, L’Île enchantée bears true comparison to only the finest of Watteau’s fêtes galantes – notably Assemblée dans un parc and Le Pélerinage à l’isle de Cithère (see fig. 3) (both, Louvre, Paris) – and must date to the same moment, circa 1717.
From an aerial – almost ‘bird’s eye’ – perspective, the viewer’s eye passes over Watteau’s beautifully articulated assembly of figures who sit, lie and lounge on the grass, before it rises upward, across a great pool of water, then up further to snow-capped mountains, and a cloud-roiled sky above, giving a great – almost cinematic – dynamism to the composition. The effect the artist creates is most comparable to that of his large-scale morceau de réception, Le Pélerinage à l’isle de Cithère, which secured his full membership in the Académie Royale when he presented it in August 1717. With its wide panorama, mood of general seduction – ‘everything breathes love, the air is bathed with it’ – and voluptuous vision of nature at its grandest and most enveloping, L’Île enchantée is a kind of Le Pélerinage à l’isle de Cithère in miniature, if in spirit and tone somewhat more ambiguous and less overtly playful.
If the landscape of L’Île enchantée is the most extensive and dramatic of Watteau’s career, the array of nineteen figures who inhabit it are among the most beautifully envisioned and articulated he ever produced. Each man and woman is lively and varied in pose – sitting, sprawling, kneeling, resting on an elbow, leaning in to offer words of seduction, pulling away to decline an unwanted advance. They dress in a mix of fashionable contemporary clothing and ‘fancy dress’ inspired by the theatre. Each fold of cloth, feathered hat, ruched bustle, and shimmer of light reflected off silk and satin is rendered with meticulous observation and accuracy, in a rainbow of variegated colors. Watteau owned ‘cavalier’s and comedian’s costumes in which he dressed up such persons as he could find, of either sex, who were capable of posing adequately, and whom he drew in such attitudes as nature dictated and with a ready preference for those that were the most simple’ (Comte de Caylus, ‘La vie d’Antoine Watteau, peintre de figures et de paysages’, in P. Rosenberg, Vies anciennes de Watteau, Paris, 1984, pp. 78-79 [English translation by R. Ironside, Goncourt's French eighteenth Century painters, London, 1948, p. 25].) Closely grouped to the left of the painting are seventeen seated figures who are balanced on the right side of the daringly asymmetrical composition, by one standing couple far removed from the others. A tall woman in a beautiful, silvery gown, seen from behind, turns to her lover and takes his arm; he turns and looks out to the viewer, as if to ask us to join them on their romantic journey.
Watteau based his painted characters on figure studies of models (usually his friends) dressed in costumes he himself provided, and he drew them from life. Many drawings have been loosely associated with figures in the painting, but only five sheets that are known today can be said, conclusively, to have been employed by the artist in composing the composition. A sheet of three studies of men (in the Louvre), executed in red and white chalk, includes a sketch for the kneeling man on the far left of L’Île enchantée and a study for the standing swain on the far right (RP.322). Another sheet, in a private collection, also includes studies in red chalk for two female figures in the painting: the seated woman seen from behind in the mustard-yellow gown, and the woman in silver who stands with her companion on the far right (RP.380 – see fig. 4). The man who lies on his stomach beneath a salmon-pink cape, appears in a sheet of red and white chalk studies in the Musée du Petit Palais, Paris (RP.407). A magnificent trois crayons study of the woman fending off her suitor in the lower left corner of the painting is in a private collection in New York (RP.543 – see fig. 5). Finally, a trois crayons drawing of the reclining man leaning on his right hand, red cape tossed over his legs, is known only from old photographs (RP.536). No doubt drawings for each character in the painting would have been utilized by Watteau in his preparations, even if most are today lost.
The most celebrated and often remarked upon aspect of L’Île enchantée is its dazzling, visionary landscape setting. The great English portrait painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), who owned L’Île enchantée in the late 18th century, is said to have been so mesmerized by its landscape and mystified by the subtle layering of glazes with which Watteau achieved it, that he scraped away a part of the sky ‘to see how Watteau painted’. (In fact, a small patch of original pigments in the sky have been scraped off.) The English landscapist J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) made a copy in pencil of the painting, with notes recording its colors, when it was in the collection of the watercolorist James Holworthy (1780-1841). Indeed, in the century that the painting resided in English collections, it was seen and studied by many British artists, including Gainsborough (1727-1788) and Wright of Derby (1734-1797), and had a notable influence on the development of landscape painting in England.
It has long been noted that the setting of L’Île enchantée was greatly influenced by 16th-century Venetian models, from Titian (1488⁄1490-1576), Campagnola (c.1500-1564) and Veronese (1528-1588), whose paintings and drawings Watteau would have seen in the extensive art collections of friends and patrons, including Crozat, Edmé-François Gersaint (1694-1750), Jean de Jullienne and the Comtesse de Verrue (1670-1736). Numerous copies drawn by Watteau in red chalk made from the Venetian old masters in Crozat’s collection survive. Less easy to trace is the impact that Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452-1519) paintings had on Watteau, but their influence is clear in Le Pélerinage à l’isle de Cithère and – never more so – L’Île enchantée. Of course, the French Royal collections famously had several of Leonardo’s greatest late paintings, including Mona Lisa and the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (today in the Louvre), both of which have fantastical, blue-tinted, snow-capped and craggy mountainous backgrounds that seem to have offered direct inspiration for L’Île enchantée. The Royal Collection was largely inaccessible to visitors during Watteau's lifetime, but he seems to have had direct access to Leonardo's masterpieces.
L’Île enchantée remained in Cartaud’s collection until his death and was recorded in the inventory of his estate in 1755, after which its provenance can be traced without interruption. It appeared in England in the collection of Dr. Robert Bragge (1700-1774), from whom it was acquired in 1758 by Reynolds. After passing through several more British collections, including Holworthy’s, it was back in France before 1881 and entered a succession of distinguished collections, including that of Baron Etienne Edmond Martin de Beurnonville (1825-1906); Edouard Kann (1848-1885); the banker Léon Michel-Lévy (1846-1925); and the celebrated parfumier François Coty, before being purchased by the dealers Wildenstein & Co., Paris & New York, from whom it was acquired by Jorge Ortiz Linares (1894-1965) and Graziella Patiño Rodriguez, and by descent to their son George Ortiz (1927-2013) and his heirs.
This famous painting was often copied in the 18th and 19th centuries in versions of varying dimensions and formats. Martin Eidelberg records thirteen known versions, most of negligible quality.
Alan Wintermute
荣誉呈献
Paul Gallois
Head of European Furniture, EMEA